"Boston is all right when you know it--or, rather, when it comes to know
you," returned Blount, remembering that Boston or Cambridge--which is
Boston in the process of elucidation--was the birth and dwelling place
of Patricia.

Gantry grinned broadly and lighted his cigar.

"The 'effete East' has psychically and psychologically corralled you,
hasn't it, Evan?--to put it in choice Bostonese. I thought maybe it
would when I heard you were taking the post-graduate frills in the
Harvard Law School. By the way, how much longer are you in for?"

"I am out of the Law School, if that is what you mean--out and admitted
to the bar," said Blount. "If you get into trouble with the Boston
police let me know, and I'll ask for a change of venue to the greasewood
hills and Judge Lynch's court."

"The good old greasewood hills!" chanted Gantry, who was of those who
curse their homeland to its face and praise it consistently and
pugnaciously elsewhere. "Are you ever coming back to them, Blount? I
believe you told me once, in the old college days, that you were
Western-born."

"I told you the truth; and until to-night I have never thought much
about going back," was Blount's rather enigmatic reply.

"But now you are thinking of it?" inquired the railroad man, waking up.
"That's good; the old Sage-brush State is needing a few bright young
lawyers mighty bad. Is that why I'm the particular fellow you wanted to
meet?"